The Mage's Magic
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: "'Once upon a time, in an age and place far removed from here, there was a kingdom of magic and mystery where there lived a king, his most favored knight…' he pauses for a beat before making a decision and adding decisively, 'And a mage.'" (In which Mycroft tells his newborn sister a story.)
1. Chapter 1

It's peaceful, the mother muses with a small smile on her face, settled in her sitting room with her husband and children, the fire in the hearth the only thing staving off the night's darkness. Moments like this are rare – and they are now doomed to become rarer still before long at all. The proof is in front of her, in the two boys across the room.

Only, they aren't boys anymore, are they? They're men, which is exactly her point.

The younger – already twenty – is sitting nearest the fireplace, playing a game of chess with his father. From here, she can see where her son can win the game, and she knows he sees the chance too. Only he doesn't make the move, which means that he's in a kind mood himself and is going to let his father win this round.

The elder boy is cattycorner to her, sitting in his father's chair and frowning into the glow of his laptop screen. He's twenty-seven and trying far too hard to carry the weight of an entire nation on his shoulders. It's not that the mother doesn't believe him capable of the feat – in fact, she knows he's capable of it – it's just that this is a family evening, and she'd like to see him engage with his family.

Stifling a sigh at the eldest, she smiles down at the bundle in her arms, the new life that is the reason her boys – men, now – have come 'round. The mother knows, of course, that she and her husband are really too old to begin down this road again, to take on the upbringing of a whole other human being. But she doesn't care, and neither does her husband. This beautiful life – a daughter that she'd never been willing to admit she wanted before she had it – had been granted to them as a wonderful surprise, and far be it from them to turn her away.

The newborn snuffles, stirring restlessly in her mother's arms as she fights sleep. She's too young to try to do such a thing, the mother had thought, but no. This third child of hers fights sleep – the world around the babe is still considered too wonderful to be disengaged from it for any time at all – and the mother has never known such tiredness as she has in the past month since her daughter's arrival.

Still, she considers the girl, maybe there could be some usefulness to the child's restlessness…

She looks to her eldest son, shifting onto her feet and going to stand in front of him before shutting his laptop with her elbow. He looks to her, plainly disgruntled with her, and complains, "I'm working."

Mother rolls her eyes at son, half-commanding, "Hold Enola for a bit? I'm going to go make her bottle."

He looks longingly down at his laptop, but they both know his sibling – now _siblings_ – have always been his greatest weakness. So the laptop is gently placed onto the floor, and he uses even more care to adjust his sister in his arms when his mother hands her over to him. The baby protests the exchange, whining and kicking feebly at her brother's arm where it rests under her.

This he takes in stride, unruffled and even smiling such a very little down at her, a fondness in his eyes that he doesn't yet allow to touch the rest of his expression for reasons the mother has never deciphered. He's better with children than anyone in the world – _besides perhaps that new secretary of his_ – would ever guess, and their mother has no qualms leaving the baby in his care as she goes to get the bottle, even calling over her shoulder, "Do a 'once upon a time' for her, Myc. Maybe your voice will soothe her into sleeping."

The elder brother shoots his mother's back a skeptical glance as she leaves the room, but the younger brother's head snaps curiously away from the chessboard and towards the eldest. "It's been a long time since I've heard about the knight," he says, his tone a perfected form of careless that holds a dozen half-truths. Waiting for their father to make his move on the board, the younger leans back in his chair and quotes from many an old memory, "'Once upon a time, in an age and place far removed from here, there was a kingdom of magic and mystery where there lived a king and his most favored knight.'" He shoots his brother a look that might've been fond had they been anyone else, declaring, "And thus the night's adventure began."

The young politician smiles, first at his brother, but then down at his sister, where his gaze remains locked upon her squirming form. He sways the infant gently, steadily, his smile one that no one outside of this house would ever see, it's that human, as he tells his brother, "But it's time to expand on that beginning, isn't it?" Then he starts his tale, something new, a relative of the fairytales that he used to make up for his brother, "Once upon a time, in an age and place far removed from here, there was a kingdom of magic and mystery where there lived a king, his most favored knight…" he pauses for a beat before making a decision and adding decisively, "And a mage. They lived separately, these three. The king had his castle, of course. The knight lived in an equally lavish if smaller house on the king's estate, and the mage… you see," the storyteller's voice changes now, as if he's disclosing some great secret even while his tone becomes laced with tenderness that he seems not to hear as he addresses the child. "She was so very important to the king and knight that they kept her sequestered away, in a calm corner of the forest away from the bustle and danger of the city. She was their best kept secret, this magical girl, who grew up happy in the forest."

The sister began to still, blinking wide blue eyes up at her brother as she listened to the flow of her big brother's voice. "But then, her existence was only one of many secrets that these three kept, wasn't it? Because though, by all appearances, the king managed to rule his kingdom while hidden away in his castle with no help from the outside world, that wasn't the true state of things at all. It was at night, while no one was looking into the castle windows for once, that the knight would come into the king's inner sanctum and the mage too, magicking herself in through the window from the forest. And it was the three of them together who would discuss the issues of their world, who would solve problems for the rest of the simple world. It was _together_ that they were best. Alone, the king was the most powerful man in the land. Alone, the knight was the most strategic force in the kingdom. Alone, the mage was… a light, a beacon of goodness to all that looked upon her. But together? Together they were a force that surpassed being 'unstoppable.' Together – the power, the cunning, and the light – they were something _otherworldly_. Yet they chose to protect the mere mortals around them, people who, sadly, were never likely to understand them. But with time and experience, the trio came to accept this. It was the mage that reminded the king and knight that they had each other, who else would they need? After all, reasoned the girl, who has time for negativity inside the world she lived in?

"She was the lucky one, after all, spending her days in the forest among gentle animals, fruit-laden trees, and flowing brooks." The brother narrows his eyes, deciding where to take this story before he continues thoughtfully, "Beyond that, because of the nature of her powers, the mage saw things that others didn't – not even the king and knight. The mage, young and innocent and untouched by the tortured world that the others daily struggled through… she saw the others that lived in her forest home. There were magical creatures in the forest, disguised to the hardened eyes of the king and knight as simple things. Where the king or the knight would see a simple fish in the water, the mage saw a mermaid. A butterfly to the eyes of the men was a beautiful fairy to the girl, and a skittish deer was in her eyes a sprite to befriend."

Their mother slips back into the room, a pleased smile on her face as she listens to her son tell his story to his sister. She hands him the baby's bottle and settles back into her seat without a word. Big brother mode in full swing, he tucks an edge of the baby blanket under his sister's chin and offers the bottle to her with a small smile for both of the females and without breaking stride in the story.

His voice is softer than ever, saying things without saying them now. "Slowly but surely, the longer the mage was around the king and the knight, the more she changed them, softened them again to the world, until one day, so slowly they didn't notice until it was already there, they too could see the sprites and fairies, the mermaids and dragons, the redcaps and sirens, for what they truly were. Though the mage didn't see it that way, that power – to humanize those around her – was the best and strongest magic that she wielded." He's whispering now, watching her eyelids droop before she's barely began on her bottle, safe and warm in her brother's arms. Impulsively, he dips his head, kisses her downy brown hair. "As for the king," he murmurs. "The only thing he ever wishes for the mage is that she never loses that light, never forgets that there's good somewhere in the world, never stops seeing the fairies in the butterflies."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Somehow the "once upon a times," as they'd been called even when Sherlock and Mycroft were children, became a tradition with Enola. On the almost rare occasions he was around at the appropriate time, she would accept no one else putting her to bed but Mycroft, and she would demand a fairytale in the process. So Mycroft would smile tolerantly, tuck her into bed and sit on the floor at her bedside, telling her a story. He spoke of the mage's simple explorations of the forest with magical creatures, of the knight's bouts of slaying dragons that flew through the shadows of the city, of the king's troubles in court. But always, always, no matter the dragons, or the wars, or the briar thickets or witches, at the end of the stories, the king, the knight, and the mage gathered together under the cover of darkness. They were together, and all was well.

Mycroft was thirty, and Enola three, when their father took ill, and his mother called him home – "Only for a week, Myc, I promise, then your father will be fit as a fiddle" – to help her keep up with things. Leaving Anthea and a whole host of other assistants in charge of his affairs, Mycroft twisted his schedule around like a pretzel and carved out the needed week to go to the countryside.

Where "keeping up with things" turned out to mean "looking after Enola." The toddler was three, and into _everything_ – truly becoming someone who wanted to explore every inch of her home and grounds – and Mrs. Holmes simply didn't have the energy to keep up with her _and_ look after her sick husband. So Enola fell to Mycroft for the week, and he didn't mind admitting that he'd mostly enjoyed the somewhat exasperating task. She was _never_ still, and after a couple of days he figured out that he could take her outside, release her into their mother's flower garden, and himself sit on the outdoor bench with his laptop, working while she remained in sight and delighted in whatever outdoor novelty she'd discovered.

Occasionally she would excitedly present him with something, squealing over the ladybug on her chubby hand or shrieking over the slug she'd seen in the daisies. Outdoors, she was generally loud, all the better to keep an eye on her, as far as Mycroft was concerned.

So he was never as confused as when she crept up to him, on literal tiptoes, and pressed a finger to her lips, hissing, "Shhhh…" with bright eyes as she took his hand and tugged.

"What is it?" he murmured, grinning indulgently at her excitement as he kept one eye on his laptop.

She glowered, slapping a hand over his mouth and tugging on his hand again. Stifling a sigh around her hand, he slid his laptop onto the bench and allowed her to lead him towards whatever had caught her fancy. A patch of the rogue wildflowers that grew unbidden on the edge of the garden, apparently, he realized, noting in amusement that, in her childish caution, she was still walking on tiptoes towards her destination.

She pointed to the flowers, whispering in awe, "F'r'ee!"

"Free?" Mycroft mouthed, confused at the baby talk as he peered along the length of her arm to where she was pointing. He knelt down beside her to get her perspective. All he was wildflowers, a millipede weaving among the dandelion stems, and a purple monarch butterfly resting on a bunch of Queen Anne's lace … and then understanding dawned. _Fairy. She was saying "fairy" because in the fairytales he told her, butterflies were also fairies._

"F'r'ee!" she repeated, her restraint nearly depleted as she all but danced with glee at her brother's side. She was eye to eye with him for once, and whispered solemnly to him, he whom she considered an expert on these things, "Is it a f'r'ee?"

Mycroft almost told her the truth. _No, Enola, it's a butterfly. All those fairies I ever told you about are butterflies._ He could tell her about butterflies, tell her of patterns and species and classifications and colors and cycles – things that would currently bore a three-year-old to death, but might one day lead to her becoming a lepidopterist.

Only… he didn't. He took one look into her eyes – brimming with childish glee and the _light_ that has so come to characterize the mage in his stories – and he _couldn't._

Instead he touched her gently, his hand engulfing her little shoulder, smiling lovingly as he whispered gently into her ear, "Yes, Enola, it's a fairy." _After all, in her eyes, who's to say that it wasn't?_

His baby sister's thrilled laugh was the purest thing he'd heard in a year, and he spent the rest of his trip obligingly filling her head with the fairytales that she adored.

* * *

During Mycroft's longer visit that week, Enola had apparently become accustomed to going to bed with a fairytale, because that first night he's back in London, his mother called him.

"What is it?" he asked, instantly worried, thinking his father might've taken sick again.

"It's Enola," his mother sighed over the phone. "She's refusing to go to sleep without a 'once upon a time.'"

Mycroft snorted before he could stop himself. "Honestly?"

"Oh, very much so." Now his mother's tone was slipping over into exasperated, and he knew what she was going to ask before the words even left her mouth. "Just a short one, maybe, over the phone? She really does have to be going to bed."

Mycroft sighed, rubbing his temple and refusing to acknowledge the happy curl of warmth in his chest at being needed – _wanted_ , even, by one of his siblings. "Very well."

And just like that, just like he wondered if they might, 'once upon a times' over the phone become a nightly occurrence.


End file.
